Corruption: Ontario government's Greenbelt land swap influenced by well-connected developers, AG finds

The Ford government removed approximately 2,995 hectares of land from the Greenbelt in December — while adding more land elsewhere — to build 50,000 homes. The government said the changes were part of its plan to build 1.5 million new homes in the next decade to ease Ontario's housing crisis.

As CBC Toronto first reported, land registry and corporate records showed several well-established developers were among the owners of the land that was removed from the Greenbelt. Some of those developers have made financial donations to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario or its politicians.

The CBC analysis also revealed several of the properties were purchased after the Ford government came to power in 2018 while they were fully or partially off-limits to development.

Lysyk agreed to look into this decision in January following a request from the leaders of all three opposition parties, who raised concerns about whether developers who benefitted from the Greenbelt decision knew about it in advance.

Instead of finding they were tipped off, Lysyk found it was the developers themselves who, in many cases, successfully lobbied to have specific sites they owned opened up for housing development.

Lysyk's audit found that 12 of the 15 parcels of land ultimately chosen for removal came from specific requests from developers or their representatives.

"Many of these individuals had advocated for the removal in emails and in-person meetings within a few months prior to their removal," according to the report. "For example, one lawyer representing three housing developers emailed the Chief of Staff on Sept. 27 and 29, 2022, providing site specific details for the land they sought to develop."

According to a timeline of key events, two prominent housing developers approached Clark's chief of staff in Sept. 2022 at a building industry event, and provided him with packages containing information on two sites in the Greenbelt — the Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve in Pickering and a site in the Township of King that was purchased that very month for $80 million.

Shortly after the September event, one of the developers provided Clark's chief of staff with information related to three other sites.

"About 92 per cent of the land that was ultimately removed from the Greenbelt was requested to be removed by the developers the chief of staff dined with at [the event]," the report says.